Bipolar.....walking on egg shells

I have talked before about my husband's bipolar.  He has been doing very well on his current medications.  Stable, "sane" as I like to say.  He is happy, makes jokes, lively, and at the same time, is a normal person, can hold a normal conversation and not in the depths of depression.  I'm very very happy to have "him" back.  We are a normal married couple, we have our ups and downs, our arguments, our fights, our struggles.   But with his added illness, I walk on egg shells, there are things I can't say, things that will set him off.

Years ago, when he was in a bad place, he did something that really made me angry.  It was the middle of the night, he woke me up and told me he spent our rent money.  His mother was having surgery the next day, he was overly stressed, and when he is stressed, he spends money. In my anger, I said "I wish I had never married you."  Such a benign statement, something said in anger, something said in passing.   But for him, it was like I took a gun and shot him through the heart.  About 30 minutes after I said it, he came in the bedroom and said "I just took a bottle of valium." 

Let me be clear, he was not trying to kill himself, he was punishing me for saying something that hurt him.  It was over 5 years ago and to this day, he still blames me for this incident. 

I forced him to go to the hospital.  We had a trip planned in 4 days, our 10 year wedding anniversery, and we were traveling for a week.  Instead I had to drag him to the hospital to get his stomach pumped.  He resisted it, said he "felt fine" and would "just sleep it off."  His mother was having surgery and we were supposed to be driving her, but instead I was taking him to the hospital and letting her down.  I called her sister and lied and told her he had strep throat and could she take Mom instead?  I didn't want them to know what had happened and to be worried about him. 

The hosptial was wonderful, very kind to him and myself, but firm.  He wasn't going home but going "upstairs" and locked up for 72 hrs.  They stuck a tube up his nose and into his stomach, my favorite part because I thought "good! you deserve this for all the crap you are putting me through!!!"  At the end of all this he was escorted upstairs, calmly, and I walked out the ER doors, and sat down on the curb outside and bawled my eyes out.  I had held it all together for 5 hrs and now I lost it. 

The first day, he called me collect and screamed at me "YOU DID THIS TO ME!!!!" 

He was let out in about 48 hrs after they determined he wasn't really a danger to himself.  His family was told what really happened.  They all felt sorry for me.

No one, unless they live with someone who is bipolar, knows what it is like to be mentally abused by them.

This is why I am so happy that the meds he is on are working so well now.  This is the best he has been in the whole time since he has been diagnosised.  He regrets his behavior when he was in his dark places and doesn't even remember some of it.  Sadly I do.  This is why we call it the "walking on egg shells" because we are always worried about what may be coming next.